Goals

Problem statement:

Currently there is no resource for English books in Sighnaghi municipality.
English is taught in the schools here, and there are additional resources available in our community, such as English conversation club at the Knowledge Cafe, and private English tutors. However, reading literature in a foreign language is crucial to language skills development, such as gaining conversational and contextual language knowledge, and there simply isn't easily accessible English language literature available in our municipality.
Since English is a very important language to learn worldwide, our community deserves the access and ability to develop their English language capacities. This will also increase economic development opportunities for both the community (increasing communication capacity with tourists and international business), as well as for individuals.

Proposed Solution:

The Knowledge Cafe has been in contact with a donor from the UK who has collected over 400 kg of donated English books. This would be an important resource for our community, and so we aim to transport these books from the UK to Tsnori. Once here, we will organize a mobile library program in cooperation with 5 of the largest schools in the municipality. We will curate 2 age-appropriate libraries from the 400 kg of books. We will transport these 2 libraries to 2 of the 5 schools, and the libraries will rotate between the schools each month. At the end of 5 months, each of the schools will have had the opportunity to house and circulate both of the mobile libraries. The books will then return to the Knowledge Cafe, which will be their permanent home. Depending on reception, this mobile library project will occur every school year. This initiative will expose English language books to a wide number of Sighnaghi municipality community members, benefiting students and teachers at each of the 5 schools, as well as the community as a whole. By housing the books at the Knowledge Cafe, we will provide a central location for English language learning to continue.

Sustainability:

Our initiative will be ongoing - it is very important for there to be a central location for English language books, which will be the English Library at the Knowledge Cafe. This project will not end after the books have arrived, as the Cafe will continue to circulate books to the general public throughout the year. We anticipate purchasing bookshelves for the mobile libraries, and so these will be maintained for use each year. We will institute a documentation system so that books are returned to the library after the standard check-out time, to ensure that no books are lost or stolen.

Equal gender opportunity:

The mobile library, as well as the permanent library at the Knowledge Cafe, will be available to both genders without discrimination. We will also ensure that books with female protagonists are highlighted, as well, so that women and girls are able to see themselves as main characters, and are not discriminated against by the library content.